[Foundation-l] An argument for strong copyleft

[Pharos]

On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 9:00 AM, Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 8:25 AM, Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org> wrote:
>  > On Sun, Apr 6, 2008 at 11:56 PM, Pharos <pharosofalexandria at gmail.com> wrote:
>  >  >  I don't want someone to modify it and put a non-free copyright on the
>  >  >  derivative of my photograph.
>  >  >
>  >  >  But I don't believe in purity tests either, that seek to dictate the
>  >  >  copyright status of work I had no hand in, and whose only connection
>  >  >  to my photograph is that they might appear on the same page.
>  >  >
>  >  Work that you had no hand in cannot be a derivative of your work, so
>  >  there's really no question about that.  However, if your photograph
>  >  appears in a newspaper article, then you *did* have a hand in that
>  >  newspaper article.
>  >
>  >  Maybe this is a matter of semantics, but if I look at a newspaper I'd
>  >  say it generally consists of articles which have pictures in them.  I
>  >  wouldn't say that it has articles and pictures which just happen to
>  > appear on the same page.
>  >
>  Let me expand on that.  Say Andrew creates an article, Bill creates a
>  photo, and Carrie puts the two together into a newspaper article.
>  Andrew sells the article to Carrie under a restrictive license.  Bill
>  releases his photo under a free, strong copyleft, license.
>
>  We have two independent works, an article and a photo, and we have a
>  newspaper article which is, at least in my opinion, a derivative of
>  both works.  Now I agree that it's unrealistic to expect Andrew to
>  give away his copyright.  He probably makes a living writing newspaper
>  articles.  On the other hand, most Bill's would find it unfair that
>  Carrie gets to profit of his work without giving anything in return.
>  This is the reason the Noncommercial-only license (which I dislike) is
>  so popular.

I like Carrie profiting.  Good for Carrie!  What I don't want is
Carrie not using my photo, because he is forced to put totally
unrealistic restrictions on Andrew.

>  But there's a simple solution.  Carrie can simply buy a license from
>  Bill to use the photo in her newspaper article.

I'm not interested in selling my works.  I'm interested in giving them away!

I actually want to encourage re-use, and some publisher having to
track me down and make me a special deal is not something that I would
consider part of the free culture process.

>  For those Bill's who don't mind Carrie's using their work in this way,
>  there's always CC-BY or some other non-copylefted free license.

I want to protect the "freeness" of actual derivatives of my work,
which is why I dislike CC-BY.  What I don't want is a purity test for
something that I and most people would not consider a derivative work,
but merely using two works on the same page.

Thanks,
Pharos